May 1975

May 1975 is the point at which the story’s wartime obligations become a present-day relationship: amid the aftermath of Saigon’s fall, Vato and Blood encounter Thi Anh Tran at Pendleton and take responsibility for her future. The date links the Vietnamese refugee influx to a promise that had originated years earlier with Gorman Flaff.

Historical Setting

In May 1975, thousands of Vietnamese refugees had arrived at Pendleton following the fall of Saigon. Thi Anh Tran was among them. Her appearance there connected Vato and Blood’s American life after the war to their earlier association with Gorman Flaff, a wartime financial operator whose affairs had involved them in currency dealings.

Flaff had paid for Thi Anh Tran’s education at a Saigon school and sent her a small monthly allowance. The reasons for his support were uncertain. One circulating account attributed it to guilt over her parents’ deaths, but the narration rejects that explanation as inconsistent with Flaff. Whatever his motive, his will named Vato and Blood as the people responsible for his obligations to her.

From Inherited Obligation to Partnership

The will first brought Thi Anh Tran’s name to Vato and Blood’s attention. At their base camp, a chaplain delivered it to them; the two men sat with the news in silence as aircraft passed overhead. By the time they encountered her at Pendleton in May 1975, their connection to her was therefore not simply a chance meeting with a newly arrived refugee: they had inherited a specific duty from Flaff.

Several years later, Thi Anh Tran was again at Pendleton, this time with an accounting diploma, waiting in a military tent. Vato and Blood first hired her as the V & B Tow Company’s accountant in fulfillment of their responsibility toward her. Recognizing her value, they soon made her an equal partner. May 1975 thus precedes a substantial change in their relationship: an obligation to provide assistance develops into a business partnership in which she holds real authority.

Later Consequences

A later birthday episode shows how thoroughly that authority had taken hold. Blood had discovered Thi Anh Tran’s birthday by chance in her file, and he and Vato struggled to choose a restaurant that would not offend her. Their concern was practical as well as personal: she controlled the company’s financial details, some of which might interest tax authorities and other organizations. The men were both afraid of upsetting her, a sharp reversal from the circumstances in which they had first encountered her among the refugees.

May 1975 therefore functions as a hinge between the aftermath of war and the later structure of the V & B Tow Company. The refugee camp is where Vato and Blood find the woman to whom Flaff’s will binds them; the partnership that follows gives that inherited duty an enduring, consequential form.